I haven’t heard too much on the Reggie Bush front lately, but the L.A. Times’s Gary Klein and David Wharton report that “there has been progress in the investigation,” according to the Pac-10’s associate commissioner of enforcement. No details beyond that. Meanwhile, ESPN’s Gene Wojciechowski says Bush should lose his Heisman if rules were broken. Personally, I don’t think it’d be fair to strip him of the award if he himself was totally innocent — but if he knew about what his parents were doing, or if he turned a blind eye to deliberately avoid knowing the details, then yeah, take away the Heisman. I have much less of a problem with changing the results of award ceremonies than with changing the results of games. The latter, it seems to me, does much more violence to history, in an Orwellian sort of way, than the former.
As for Mark Sanchez, “the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office has not yet determined whether charges will be filed,” according to Klein Wharton. In the mean time, Sanchez remains on “interim suspension,” whatever that means, but he is taking finals. That’s according to the L.A. Daily News’s Scott Wolf, who has blogged several times about indications from various sources that the case against Sanchez appears somewhat weak. Wolf also quoted a statement from Sanchez’s family.
Oh, and Wolf has apparent confirmation of the Matt-and-Paris-sittin’-in-a-tree story. Yuck.
Last but not least, some good news for fellow Trojans: it looks like tailback Chauncey Washington will be eligible to play next season. That’s according to him; as of yet, grades are still unofficial.
P.S. The AP has an article summarizing the difficulties USC’s football program has faced in the last few weeks. Excerpt:
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Just two weeks ago, the Southern California football program was in wonderful shape — a dynasty in the works.
Now, with allegations of NCAA violations surfacing against a pair of All-Americans and another player arrested for investigation of sexual assault, the program is under intense scrutiny.
“Without a doubt, we’ve been put into a light that challenges us,” USC coach Pete Carroll said. “Time will sort things out. We’ll see how everything comes out. No question, people will be wondering about the program a little bit.” …
Perhaps success breeds this kind of attention. Past national champions like Clemson, Miami, Washington, Florida State and Ohio State have been targets of allegations that resulted in investigations.
Carroll isn’t shying away, although he realizes the school’s image has been tarnished for now. He was emphatic concerning the effort made to inform players and their families about what can go wrong.
“We’ve been all over this,” he said. “We’re trying to inform and educate better than anybody in the country. We have to send the message so clear. It’s about creating a conscience with the players first.
“It starts all the way back to junior day, the first day we bring future recruits on campus. We start talking about what this all means, what this is all about, and it just goes on throughout.”
Even so, Carroll said, he’s ultimately responsible as the head coach.
“I’m not going to make excuses for any part of this,” he said. “I’m not going to point the finger at somebody else. I’m the one who has to continue to get this done. I’ve got to do a better job.”
The article adds that “Carroll said he spoke with Bush and his parents several times about NCAA rules and outsiders who might entice them,” but the coach says, “We have to do better with all the family members.” As for the possibility of forfeitures and vacated national championships, Carroll says, “With the little bits of information I have, no, I’m not worried about that one bit. I’m confident that’s not where this is going.”
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Categories: USC, College Football
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May 9th, 2006 at 3:54:12 pm
I don’t see any real value in taking the Heisman away. Nothing that is alleged has any bearing on how he played last year, which is what the award was given for, and while he might technically have been “ineligible” i happen to think its a stupid punishment given the alleged crime, not that its not the on the books one, just that the NCAA has a bass ackwards way of doing things. Plus it brings up a host of new issues. IF he is declared ineligible you can’t just give it to the next top vote reciever (Young) because by declaring him ineligible you are saying he shouldn’t have been an eligible candidate in the first place, meaning no one should have been allowed to vote for him. You’d basically hvae to redo the votes, and given that there are events which happened AFTER which undoubtedly will influence voters thats unfair too. Its really just a mess anyway you look at it.
May 9th, 2006 at 4:35:50 pm
Explain to me how a guy goes from ineligible for two straight years to getting a 3.8 semester average as soon as USC has depth issues at running back. If thats not shady I don’t know what is.
May 9th, 2006 at 4:49:52 pm
your leader has abandoned his post. he has abandoned you all. he has given up on you. he no longer cares. he no longer rules. i hereby declare myself king of this blog until chaos is restored. i declare this blog for blinks and the gungan nation. worry not, while i may have your worst intrests in mind, my mind is questionable at best. from this point on, i shall be referred to as king jar jar, or your majesty. all posts shall end in the following decree: LONG LIVE THE KING! many of ye may be questioning my birthright, fret not as i have none; however, i do have dibs, as i am the first to yell shotgun, and shotgun i have yelled. the throne is mine! i am your leader! sacrifices and swore oaths of loyalty are welcome. you may commence posting! LONG LIVE THE KING!
May 9th, 2006 at 4:56:29 pm
studying? taking easier classes?
May 9th, 2006 at 4:58:22 pm
David, given the near-universality of the vote order Bush-Young-Leinart (unprecedented “lock-step voting”), I’m fairly confident in saying that if everything else had been the same, but Bush had not been eligible for the Heisman, Vince Young would have won. Just look at the second-place votes: Young got 613 of them, a clear majority, to Leinart’s 147. Although you never know how the politics of it would have shaken out (USC would have been “campaigning” for Leinart instead of Bush), I think the vote totals support the conclusion that there is no way Leinart would have beaten Young in a two-man race. The only real question is whether Brady Quinn would have been the only additional person invited to New York, or whether any of the other also-rans would have picked up enough third-place votes would have joined him (or even finished ahead of him). Because there were so few third-places votes for anyone other than the Big Three, it’s hard to know for sure. But Vince Young finishing anything other than first? Highly unlikely.
HOWEVER, if Bush was “ineligible” for those games, that means he technically should not have played in them, an alternate-reality scenario which raises interesting and unanswerable questions. If Bush isn’t playing at all, does USC turn to its passing game more often, giving Leinart better numbers? Or do the Trojans lose a couple of games, taking Leinart out of the running entirely? Does Notre Dame beat USC and finish 10-1, making Brady Quinn a serious Heisman contender?
That said, I don’t have any problem with them giving it to Vince Young, if Bush ends up being stripped of the award. Young wasn’t just the second-place finisher, he was a CLEAR second-place finisher — one of the strongest second-place finishes ever, in terms of percentage of second-place votes.
As for Domer’s comment… it’s surprising, but not necessarily “shady.” Perhaps he took easier classes, or perhaps he genuinely improved his study habits. Of course, it’s also possible that something shady was going on, but we certainly don’t know that. But I will say this: as a former tutor for the USC athletic department, I can virtually guarantee you that the tutoring office was not complicit in any “shady” business. They are VERY VERY strict in their rules for what is allowed and what isn’t, in terms of helping student-athletes. This stems from an incident some years ago where a tutor was writing papers for an athlete, or something along those lines. I’m not saying it’s impossible that an individual tutor broke the rules again, but I’d be very surprised because there is a significant amount of oversight… and anyway I can assure that there was no institutional role in it, unless the compliance ethic over there has done a complete 180 in three years. They were VERY conscientious about that stuff when I was there.
May 9th, 2006 at 5:02:11 pm
you may have returned brendan but your rule is over! you hath chosen studying over blogging and you hath chosen poorly… i am the master now!
LONG LIVE THE KING!
May 9th, 2006 at 5:10:44 pm
Beyond the issues of studying and easier classes–and I can say with confidence that there certainly are some programs at USC with more significant weeding in the early part than the later parts, as I was in a few myself–wouldn’t he have had more incentive to become elligible if there were depth issues at his position? I mean, if you’re not going to play anyway because there are multiple people ahead of you, being beneath the academic cut-off to play isn’t a huge issue. But if the team is obviously looking for more options in your position, there’s more value to you in being technically allowed to play, isn’t there?
May 9th, 2006 at 5:15:16 pm
Good point, Mike.
David, look at it this way: Vince Young got 79 first-place votes and 613 second-place votes. Even if we assume that every single person who cast a first-place vote for someone other than Young or Bush was among the 613 who put Young second (meaning that Young would gain the least possible number of first-place votes by Bush dropping out), that leaves us with at least 584 Heisman voters who definitely thought Young was better than anyone else in the country except Bush, according to their ballots. Add those to the 79 people who thought Young was even better than Bush, and you have at least 663 first-place votes for Young, out of 892 total. That’s 74.3%! And it would probably be even more than that (like 680 or 690). Would the altered politics of the situation (with only one USC player in the running) be enough to overcome such a huge VY advantage? I seriously, seriously doubt it. Just to get Young below 50% of the first-place votes, 218 of his 663 supporters (almost a third) would have had to switch from Young to Leinart… and even then, Leinart wouldn’t win because not everyone is going to vote him first or second. It would probably take 250 or more “switches,” and I find it very hard to believe that such a large percentage of the voters who previously thought Young was better than Leinart would have felt differently just because Reggie Bush was ineligible for the award.
If there is ever a year when it would make sense to award a stripped Heisman to the second-place finisher, this is the year, thanks to the “lock-step voting.” If they’re not going to do it — i.e., if they strip Bush but then simply do not award the Heisman to anyone — I think the best argument for doing so would be precedent, i.e., although it works well this year, it wouldn’t work most years. However, arguing against it on the basis that “we don’t know whether Young would have won” isn’t very accurate. We basically do know.
May 9th, 2006 at 5:18:17 pm
P.S. Er, and long live the king. :)
May 9th, 2006 at 5:20:56 pm
hahahahhahahahhahhahahhahah! I AM DRUNK WITH POWER!!!
LONG LIVE THE KING!
May 9th, 2006 at 5:23:03 pm
WHO SHALL ANNOUNCE MY KINGSHIP???! shall i arrive unannounced!?!? I shall need a kingly decree!
LONG LIVE THE KING!
May 9th, 2006 at 5:31:58 pm
i’m not sayign Young WOULDN’T have won it, or that he didn’t deserve it or anything, I’m simply saying I don’t like the idea of rewarding the second place winner in a contest when it was a vote the first place award, given that the voting would have been different. It would be completely different if it were say, a foot race, as we clearly konw that Young was the second fastest. And would you really be happy with the award knowing that someone was better than you and lost it on some minor technicality? I wouldn;t, although given Youngs attitude i think he would.
May 9th, 2006 at 5:41:14 pm
I’m simply saying I don’t like the idea of rewarding the second place winner in a contest when it was a vote the first place award, given that the voting would have been different.
But David, it isn’t just a vote for first place; each voter chooses a first-place, second-place and third-place choice. If Young were merely “second” on the basis of the fact that “he got the second-most first-place votes” (e.g., John Kerry in 2004), I would agree with you. But in a system where each voter has a second- and third-place vote, we can actually discern the voters’ intent more clearly. Given that at least 74.3% of voters clearly expressed, through their first- and second-place votes, the opinion that Young was better than everyone else except Bush, I think this is very much like your hypothetical “foot race,” where we clearly know that Young was the second best. Just like in the foot race, you can argue that things might somehow have gone differently without the lead competitor’s presence — perhaps the second-place runner might not have run as fast without someone ahead of him, and would have been caught from behind down the stretch; perhaps the voters would have chosen differently because USC would have been “marketing” Leinart instead of Bush, or because they had a pro-USC bias and wanted to put a Trojan first but didn’t mind putting a Longhorn second :) — but regardless of those hypothetical possibilities, the reality is that on the merits, on the basis of the results that actually occurred, it’s perfectly and undeniably clear that a very large majority of voters thought Young was the most deserving candidate not named Reggie Bush. It’s just as clear as your hypothetical foot-race.
May 9th, 2006 at 8:59:50 pm
From cruising the message boards these past few years, I came to understand that Chauncey was a math major (and a computer science minor, too, as it turns out). Many people groaned and felt he was a *football player*, so he shouldn’t be majoring in such a difficult subject if low grades in that subject were keeping him off the field. By all accounts, Chauncey never wavered and kept his major. I think it’s pretty cool he stuck it out rather than transferring to an easier major or going to a junior college to have easier classes and get his grades up.
Also, it should not be a mystery that Chauncey is “suddenly” eligible. From what I understand, you have to have a certain GPA two consecutive semesters to regain eligibility. Chauncey got his grades back in order in the fall of 2004 when he sat out that season, so he practiced in the spring of 2005, but unfortunately his grades slipped. He was unable to undo the damage in the summer, so he was ineligible again for the 2005 season. Now he’s had two good semesters in a row, so he’s eligible again.
May 10th, 2006 at 11:55:50 am
If it turns out Bush knew and condoned it, I say take away the Heisman. Why punish USC for one guy’s fuck up? Frankly, I wish we would begin to punish celebrities and athletes for breaking the same rules and laws that the rest of us must live by everyday. Taking away a trophy is the least that could be done.
January 7th, 2007 at 7:54:23 am
great blog